After a whirlwind of travel and hosting two parties at home, I had a couple days at the end of winter break to prepare for the new calendar year. I dislike New Year’s resolutions and goals but I appreciate the opportunity to clear the decks. The fresh calendar year is a nice time to consider how (and if) I’m setting myself up for success. This year I thought about how I want to support my writing. How can I give it the resources I think it deserves?
I ended up with five steps — some simple, some a little heavy — to bring myself closer to where I want to be.
Reduced social media Screen Time limit from 1 hour to 30 minutes
I use Apple’s Screen Time feature to budget time on my phone. It cuts me off from most apps between 9:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. and limits doomscrolling timesucks like Reddit and Threads. For a long time I maintained a one-hour daily combined limit on all social media apps. Lately it hasn’t felt like enough. I cut it back to thirty minutes to allow myself (at most) only one doomscrolling misstep.
Cleaned my desk
When my surroundings are clean and intentional, my mind follows. A clean desk also signals respect and investment in my work. Staging my workspace for the new year felt like a great way to show myself what’s important.
Was corny and bought this “rise and grind” candle to burn during writing work time
I’ve seen this recommended many places over the years and I’m finally going to try lighting a candle during dedicated writing time. Just like bedtime routines help signal to the brain that it’s time to sleep, sensory cues can make it easier to settle in for creative work. I also suspect the lit candle will provide a degree of accountability. I’m a natural rule-follower. Non-writing tangents will feel wrong while the candle is lit. The symbolism of snuffing the candle out early also will not be lost on me. I’ll probably struggle the most to light the candle in the first place, but I already feel a little bad about it sitting cold on my desk, so I’m hopeful.
Defined a new “writing” focus on my devices that blocks notifications from all apps and people except my immediate household/family.
Apple devices allow you to configure different “Focus” modes, each with their own home screen, lock screen, and Screen Time-esque restrictions. I set up a new writing one to reinforce my lit-candle work mode goals. Literally all notifications are blocked, both on my laptop and my phone, except texts and calls from my immediate family. I think a lot of us underestimate the drain of constant notifications and buzzes, even when we ignore them. The mental effort it takes to disregard them adds up.
Resolved to stop underselling my skills, both in writing and in other work that could support it (ie app development)
Facing a big realignment in my writing life (something I’ll probably write more about later), I want to heed publishing whisperer Susan Shapiro’s sage advice: take the pressure off your writing to pay your bills. I was fortunate to be “just” a writer for a few years. Now I need some time to focus on craft and long-term writing goals without everything having to make short-term business sense. That will require me to take some big swings with my writing, and also get a side job.
That side job could mean trying to get a front-desk shift at my gym, or I could ask myself: why not use the skills you’ve gained creating an entire iPhone app from scratch and releasing it on the App Store?
I’ve struggled to claim those skills and call myself a “real” app developer, and I want to push back harder against that this year. I’m proud of Do The Thing. It’s a good little app. If I were a mediocre man, I would’ve already parlayed it into a good-paying job. I wouldn’t have wasted time wondering if I deserved to take up space at the table with the big-boy software engineers. What’s the harm in trying to reap the rewards of my hard work?
In addition to respecting my side-gig-ready skills, I also want to respect my writing. I already submitted to a bucket-list publication and signed up for a bucket-list class to learn more about publishing short-form nonfiction. This required me to tune out the voice that asked if I was sure I was cool enough and had enough worthwhile things to say. At the end of the day, that’s not my call.
And that’s the rub
I could boil this whole list down to respecting what is and isn’t my call. I can’t control whether an editor will want to buy my writing, or whether I get hired to write code for someone else’s app. That’s for others to decide.
At the same time, I need to let them decide. That means setting myself up to do my absolute best work, then putting that work out into the world. Repeatedly. I can’t decide the outcome, but I can decide if I’m playing to win or just playing not to lose.
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